Frances Coles

Believed to be, by many, the last victim of the unidentified serial killer of the 19th century nicknamed Jack The Ripper.

When I came home last time [18 months later, February 1891], though, I found her very much altered so far as her position went. She had come down in the world like they all do in time, but even then, she hated the women with whom she had to associate. "Regardless of the circumstances, her fall from grace was a secret she did her best to keep from her family. She still crossed the Thames every Friday to visit her father in the Bermondsey Workhouse on Tanner Street. She also went to see him every holiday and on most Sundays as well.

The last time James Coles saw his daughter Frances was on Friday, February 6 1891, only a week before her murder. She apparently revealed the fact that she had left her position at the chemist's, but she told him that she was still renting a room in the home of a respectable older woman at 32 Richard Street. James Thomas Sadler was discharged from the ship S. S.

Fez on February 11 1891, and proceeded to make his way toward Commercial Street and The Princess Alice pub (or "The Alice"). He was a 53 year-old belligerent hard drinking big man, only two inches shy of 6 feet tall. While having some drinks he met Frances, who called him Jim (whereas all his friends called him Tom).

At 2:15am from Friday February 13th 1891, P. C. Ernest Thompson was on his beat along Chamber Street, only minutes away from Leman Street Police Station. He had been on the police force less than two months, and this was his first night on the beat alone. Thomspon heard the retreating footsteps of a man in the distance, apparently heading toward Mansell Street. Only a few seconds later he turns his vision to the darkest corner of Swallow Gardens and shines his lamp upon the body of Frances Coles. Thompson had passed the spot 15 minutes before and was adamant that she hadn't been there then. Blood was flowing profusely from her throat, and to Thompson's horror, he saw her open and shut one eye. Since the woman was alive, police procedure dictated that Thompson remain with the body - his inability to follow the retreating footsteps of the man he believed to have been her killer would haunt him for the rest of his days. Thompson immediately blew his whistle to raise the alarm and the neighboring beat officers, PC Frederick Hyde and PC Hinton, came running to the scene. They were soon joined by Police-constable George Elliott who was on plain clothes duty in adjacent Royal Mint-street. Checking for signs of life, the officers found her to be quite warm and they also felt a very faint pulse. PC Hyde was then sent to fetch the local medic, Dr Frederick Oxley, who arrived at the scene and pronounced life extinct. James Thomas Sadler was captured by the police, but the Seamen's Union paid for his proper legal representation. At the inquest, the jury returned a verdict of "Willful Murder against some person or persons unknown" on February 27, and four days later the Thames Magistrate's Court dropped all charges against Sadler.

James Thomas Sadler, a merchant seaman and fireman, first met Frances around September 1889, and he is quoted saying: "When I first knew her she was a very reserved kind of girl, keeping to herself, and never mixing with any women of her class.

She worked there as an occasional day laborer for at least a few years but her last separation might have been as early as 1883. The next time the company had some work for her, they sent a telegram to her last known address, a Christian mission on Commercial Road, but she no longer lived there. The people at Hora's never tried to contact her again.

By 1883 Frances was living in a new residence, Wilmott's Lodging House at 18 Thrawl Street in Spitalfields. Wilmott's catered exclusively to women, and it was small by East End standards, having about seventy beds. Around this time, when she was around 24 years old, she met laborer James Murray and their relationship lasted for about four years. Frances never held a permanent job again and while no one knows when she first became involved with prostitution, she probably began as an occasional one during her furloughs from work at Hora's. She had to do something to come up with the money she needed for food and shelter. Frances never earned enough to allow her to escape Thrawl Street, and her clothes had become so worn and dingy they kept her from being considered for any type of employment and she reached the point where she had no choice but walk the streets. Frances was extremely quiet, almost aloof. She tried to avoid people (clients) she considered "rough," and she "hated" the low-class prostitutes she encountered. At some point she picked up the street name "Carroty Nell".

Frances was around 22 and still living at 192 Union Street when the 1881 census was taken, and still calling herself Coleman. She reported the occupation as "powder packer". She had already left her job at Sinclair's and was working at Winifred Hora & Co. , a small wholesale druggist company in the East End, located at 58 Minories Street. It took her 40 minutes to walk from home to work. The company's flagship product was Macord's Transparent Waterproof Isinglass Plaster, but they also produced a variety of medicinal drugs and medicated powders for the wholesale and export market, packaging them in square glass bottles that were sealed with snug-fitting cork stoppers. Paper labels were then affixed to the bottles to identify the contents. Frances took turns between inserting the cork stoppers, or "stoppering the bottles" as she called it, and applying the paper labels with glue. The stoppers had to be forcibly twisted into the medicine bottles by hand, and Frances soon developed calluses on her knuckles. According to her foreman at Hora's, Frances was "an exceptionally quiet, retiring, and well-behaved girl (. . . ), thoroughly respectable. " Frances wasn't a full time employee at Hora's, she was a day laborer. When things were slow she didn't work or get paid. Some weeks she didn't earn anything.

, would born on August 30, 1862. Frances found a job as a trainee in the packing department of a soap and toiletries manufacturer called James Sinclair & Son, at 65 Southwark Street, and she moved into a lodging house at 192 Union Street. She told the people at Sinclair's and at the lodging house that her name was Coleman.

She was born at her family's home at 18 Crucifix Lane in Bermondsey (Southwark, London) on September 17, 1859. Her father, James William Coles, was a 39 year-old master boot maker from Publow, Somerset. Her mother, Mary Ann Carney, was a 29 year-old from Armagh, Ireland. The Coles already had two daughters, 7 year-old Mary Ann (b.

ca 1853), and Selina Adelina, who was almost four (born on October 25, 1855). Their last child, and only son, James Jr.